The Voynich Manuscript is still undeciphered. This project tests one concrete hypothesis: Mishnaic Hebrew with Judeo-Aramaic loan particles, written in a consonant alphabet with Niqqud vowel markings.
A handwritten parchment codex of around 240 surviving pages, originally an estimated 272 pages in 20 quires. It contains botanical sections with over 100 unidentified plant drawings, astronomical-astrological diagrams with zodiac signs, balneological illustrations of bathing figures in tube systems, cosmological fold-out pages, pharmaceutical sections, and a continuous text section without illustrations. The entire text is written in a script that has not yet been reliably deciphered, made of about 20 to 25 recurring signs — known as “Voynichese”.
From 15th-century parchment workshops to digital analysis in the 21st century.
Radiocarbon dating of four parchment samples (folios 8, 26, 47, 68) at the University of Arizona (2009) consistently yields this period. Ink and pigment analyses confirm materials consistent with the early 15th century — a modern forgery is therefore considered unlikely. Stylistic features of the illustrations point to a place of origin in northern Italy.
A surviving accompanying letter names Emperor Rudolf II as an early owner, supposedly acquired for 600 ducats. Its earlier provenance remains unknown; the ownership record between the 17th and early 20th century is poorly documented.
The antiquarian Wilfrid M. Voynich acquires the codex from the holdings of the Jesuit College of Villa Mondragone near Frascati. A sale at the demanded price of around 100,000 US dollars is not concluded during his lifetime.
After Voynich’s death the manuscript stays first with Ethel Voynich, later in the estate of her secretary, before being passed on through the antiquarian H. P. Kraus.
Transfer to the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University. The digitized pages have since counted among the library’s most-viewed holdings — the text remains undeciphered to this day.
The methodological guardrails underlying the entire decipherment system — from the core hypothesis to the botanical verification method.
The starting point is a consonant alphabet with Niqqud-like vowel markings that encodes Mishnaic Hebrew with Aramaic loan particles. Every EVA transcription sign is assigned a Hebrew equivalent, determined by position.
The dominant schema is that of a Hippocratic-medieval medical treatise: diagnosis → symptom description → therapy indication → prognosis — attested mainly in the botanical-pharmaceutical sections. Two areas follow their own pattern: the astronomical section (incl. folio f58r) reads as a register of pharmacopoeia and fixed-star catalogue, not a diagnostic schema. The opening folio f1r stands as a declarative, sui-generis-style text outside both patterns.
Every mapping hypothesis is checked via a backward test: a known Hebrew or Aramaic word is transcribed into EVA per the proposed mapping and searched in the corpus. A hit counts as confirmed only with actual occurrence, a semantically plausible position, and matching neighbor words. A five-level confidence scale (1 = speculative to 5 = secure) rates the robustness of every lexicon entry.
Botanical analyses follow a fixed order: first independent image observation along all morphological features, then one’s own botanical candidates. A comparison with the known Petersen reference list happens only at the end, for comparison purposes — never as a starting hypothesis.
The best-verified sequences in the corpus — as an orientation aid when translating.
Identical l-directional morphology, opposite semantics. Major new finding of v5.2. lor is widely attested (27 folios); lshol so far attested only as a single occurrence (f7v). ★★★★
First attestation of ykchor (he heals the pupil — 4th verb in the y+k+[terminus] paradigm) and of ycheor= as a positive closing colophon. f11v (Borago type) is the most positive prognostic folio in Quire B. odl (9 attestations/4 folios) is not yet formalized as its own lexicon entry. schold at f11v P.6 is a 2/4 segmentation tie (H/F: schold; C/U: s + chold) — both readings currently equally well attested. ★★★
ykaiin completes the y+k+[terminus] paradigm to five clinical verb forms (life, light, pupil, pallor, eye). The blood triad dol·dair·dam (f14v P.8) is the first attestation of dam in Quire B and connects f14v with f3r (blood plant). ★★★★★
soloiin (f15v P.11) = “medicine for the eye” — the most therapeutically precise compound in the entire corpus. ykshol (f15r P.12) = first negative y+k+terminus — paradigm with 6 members + candidate ykair. Bifolio bB2 (f10r/f10v/f15r/f15v) closes a consistent ophthalmological program. qotchor is subject to an ongoing OP-A review of its prefix classification; the translation remains valid unchanged until that decision. ★★★★★
tchor (תְּ+חֹר) — fem. pupil-healing verb, two attestations confirmed in bB1 ★★★★. chkar·chkar (f16v P.6) — first double examination formula in the corpus. Bifolio bB1 (f9r/f9v/f16r/f16v) complete — Quire B closed; first purely positive quire conclusion in the analyzed corpus. sokar and oaorar are so far attested exclusively on f16v itself (candidate status ★★, further attestation pending). ★★★
f18r: Centaurea montana — strongest closing colophon in Quire C; dar·dar (R36 first attestation), doldaiin (judgment of illness, corpus first attestation). f18v: Dracunculus vulgaris — first zoomorphic companion figure in the botanical corpus; ykam/ytor resurrection verbs; qokchy·qokchy R37 first attestation. R39 (dom=) still carries candidate status (R43 deadline open). yko (5 attestations/2 folios) is not yet formalized as its own lexicon entry. ★★★
Three independently confirmed words + Aramaic genitive suffix in natural word order. sar and al are majority-consented here; at f57r P.9 daiindy is read that way by only one of three transcriber layers (F) (H/C: uncertain character at the same position) — for the word itself there is majority consensus at f100r (4/4) and f105r (3/3). ★★★★
First complete zodiac register: R17 ★★★★ (5th register), R19/R35 ★★★ (zodiac first attestation), R50 ★★★★ (2nd register), R52a ★★★★ (4 folios · 75 labels · 47%). alef/otalef = first iconographic letter reference in the zodiac corpus. ★★★★
Line-end formula: binary prognosis (healing or no way out), identical to the Hippocratic-Arabic prognosticon schema.
Complete Hippocratic prognosis schema in five words. sheckhy (124 attestations/19 folios) is, despite broad attestation, not yet formally included in the lexicon — priority formalization candidate. ★★★★
Triple prognosis: exhaustion → death → patient dying. chalal appears exclusively after sheol.
Identical l-directional morphology, opposite semantics. Major new finding of v5.2. lor is widely attested (27 folios); lshol so far attested only as a single occurrence (f7v). ★★★★
First attestation of ykchor (he heals the pupil — 4th verb in the y+k+[terminus] paradigm) and of ycheor= as a positive closing colophon. f11v (Borago type) is the most positive prognostic folio in Quire B. odl (9 attestations/4 folios) is not yet formalized as its own lexicon entry. schold at f11v P.6 is a 2/4 segmentation tie (H/F: schold; C/U: s + chold) — both readings currently equally well attested. ★★★
ykaiin completes the y+k+[terminus] paradigm to five clinical verb forms (life, light, pupil, pallor, eye). The blood triad dol·dair·dam (f14v P.8) is the first attestation of dam in Quire B and connects f14v with f3r (blood plant). ★★★★★
soloiin (f15v P.11) = “medicine for the eye” — the most therapeutically precise compound in the entire corpus. ykshol (f15r P.12) = first negative y+k+terminus — paradigm with 6 members + candidate ykair. Bifolio bB2 (f10r/f10v/f15r/f15v) closes a consistent ophthalmological program. qotchor is subject to an ongoing OP-A review of its prefix classification; the translation remains valid unchanged until that decision. ★★★★★
tchor (תְּ+חֹר) — fem. pupil-healing verb, two attestations confirmed in bB1 ★★★★. chkar·chkar (f16v P.6) — first double examination formula in the corpus. Bifolio bB1 (f9r/f9v/f16r/f16v) complete — Quire B closed; first purely positive quire conclusion in the analyzed corpus. sokar and oaorar are so far attested exclusively on f16v itself (candidate status ★★, further attestation pending). ★★★
f18r: Centaurea montana — strongest closing colophon in Quire C; dar·dar (R36 first attestation), doldaiin (judgment of illness, corpus first attestation). f18v: Dracunculus vulgaris — first zoomorphic companion figure in the botanical corpus; ykam/ytor resurrection verbs; qokchy·qokchy R37 first attestation. R39 (dom=) still carries candidate status (R43 deadline open). yko (5 attestations/2 folios) is not yet formalized as its own lexicon entry. ★★★
Three independently confirmed words + Aramaic genitive suffix in natural word order. sar and al are majority-consented here; at f57r P.9 daiindy is read that way by only one of three transcriber layers (F) (H/C: uncertain character at the same position) — for the word itself there is majority consensus at f100r (4/4) and f105r (3/3). ★★★★
First complete zodiac register: R17 ★★★★ (5th register), R19/R35 ★★★ (zodiac first attestation), R50 ★★★★ (2nd register), R52a ★★★★ (4 folios · 75 labels · 47%). alef/otalef = first iconographic letter reference in the zodiac corpus. ★★★★
Line-end formula: binary prognosis (healing or no way out), identical to the Hippocratic-Arabic prognosticon schema.
Complete Hippocratic prognosis schema in five words. sheckhy (124 attestations/19 folios) is, despite broad attestation, not yet formally included in the lexicon — priority formalization candidate. ★★★★
Triple prognosis: exhaustion → death → patient dying. chalal appears exclusively after sheol.
Enter EVA text into the input field (words separated by spaces or ·; a new line = a new phrase, = marks a paragraph end). The tool searches the confirmed lexicon, recognizes prefixes, and shows Hebrew, a word-by-word analysis, and the German meaning. Unknown words are marked as such.
The tool works on the confirmed lexicon (419 entries, ★★★ or higher). Complex compounds and unknown words are marked as “unknown”. The output is a hypothesis — not a finished translation.
The decipherment system understands itself as a strong, systematically testable reading hypothesis — not as a proven decipherment. Openly documented remain, among other things, a word-length distribution unusually narrow for free Semitic morphology, a positional “slot grammar” of individual signs not yet fully modeled formally, and a still-missing independent blind validation by specialists who have not previously seen the system.
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